Denazification

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Denazification (German: Entnazifizierung) was an Allied initiative to rid German and Austrian society, culture, press, economy, judiciary, and politics of the Nazi ideology following the Second World War. It was carried out by removing those who had been Nazi Party or SS members from positions of power and influence, disbanding or rendering impotent the organizations associated with Nazism, and trying prominent Nazis for war crimes in the Nuremberg trials of 1946. The program of denazification was launched after the end of the war and was solidified by the Potsdam Agreement in August 1945. The term, in the hyphenated form de-nazification, was first used in 1943 by the Pentagon, intended to be applied in a narrow sense with reference to the post-war German legal system. However, according to historian Frederick Taylor, it later was used with a broader meaning. Very soon after the program started, due to the emergence of the Cold War, the western powers and the United States in particular...

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